


Sigma Prompts

by LegendaryBard



Series: Ten One-Word Prompts [8]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, sort of like a character study?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 07:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21797977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LegendaryBard/pseuds/LegendaryBard
Summary: Some short little Sigma prompts, based on a random word generator.If you've been following this series, you know the gist.
Series: Ten One-Word Prompts [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/758940
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	Sigma Prompts

ISSUE

“It must be approached from a different angle,” Siebren reasons aloud. “The problem… The problem lies in— Oh! Aha, ah, I have it!” He energetically gestures to anyone nearby, and a writing utensil and slip of paper are produced from the shifting crowd. De Kuiper begins frantically drawing, scratching swirling mathematical symbols onto the scrap of paper. Necks are craned, trying to understand just what he’s doing— and then his feverish scribbles stop. 

“... Aha, I’m sorry,” he sheepishly looks up at his colleagues, the craggy-faced Dr. O’Deorain and a phalanx of other scientists whose names are escaping him at the moment. “This is embarrassing. What were we talking about?” 

LOUNGE

Days of field research are very rare. Sigma doesn’t get to go out much anymore; typically he finds himself placed in a laboratory setting. If not there, then he is most commonly in his quarters or the office of some kind-voiced doctor. 

Ahh, but not today. Today he is outside; the air is sharp and clean, the grass green and bright, the trees broad-boughed and shady. Sigma’s hand trembles with exertion as he uproots a mound of soil from where it had been anchored in the earth. 

He gently settles upon the floating heap, suspending it with just an afterthought. His foot taps with the soft rhythm of the universe, and he closes his eyes, allowing his head to weave left-to-right as the cosmos’s metronome. 

CUTE

_ I must have it,  _ Siebren thought, immediately.  _ It calls to me.  _

“It” is a hideous space-themed sweater, marred by questionable color choices (purple, green, and red), awful stitching, and lovingly rendered but still horrifically inaccurate star charts. The pattern lures de Kuiper as a siren lures a sailor. It’s awful. It’s adorable. It’s contemptible. It’s cute. He wants it more desperately than anything in the world. 

“Doctor O’Deorain,” he whispers to her, once her conversation with the shopkeeper is done. He follows it up with a nudge.  _ “Look.”  _

She looks, and makes a face.

“I am not leaving without it,” Siebren warns her. 

COPE

Coping is hard sometimes.

(Sigma screams in their faces— the melody has taken over, pounding painfully in his temples, searing every furl of his brain. How can they not hear it? How is it not hurting them, too?)

The attacks come on with very little warning or preamble. 

(He doesn’t want to hurt them, but his powers cast themselves out without his direct control. Guards and scientists alike are thrown through the air like ragdolls, and the rhythm of the universe courses through every nerve in Sigma’s body. Objects fly through the air, snapping into a practiced orbit. The secret is there. He is getting ever closer.)

Waiting it out or sedation are the only options. 

BITTER

The dark, reverberating curl of the Reaper’s voice reminds Siebren of dark chocolate.

Not dark chocolate, really. Black chocolate. Complete cacao. Rich, though gritty under the tooth and bitter to the point of spitting. Siebren was never brave in the classical heroic sense, and sheer alienness of the Reaper makes him nervous, even though they’re on the same side. 

“Thank you for saving me,” Siebren says to him, once. It’s when they both happen to be traveling down opposite paths on the same hallway. They have never been alone together before— this was the early days, when Siebren had just gotten over the shock of freedom. 

“It was just a job,” the Reaper responds, cool, and yes, bitter, as he breezes past.

SWALLOW

Siebren, like any true Dutchman, is a fan of pickled herring. He always liked the mild, fleshy taste of fish.

His cohorts presumably also like fish; their problem is seemingly with how  _ Siebren  _ eats it. 

O’Deorain’s face scrunches in a grimace when Siebren lowers a fish into his mouth, managing to get the entire thing in one distracted bite as he ruminates over his latest project. He chews, considerately, wipes his hands, and returns to sketching out an idea. He sucks on the stump of the tail while in thought, and it wobbles in the corner of his mouth like a cigar stub when he talks. 

“Perhaps if we…?” Siebren muses, hands tracing over the paper. 

Although precariously perched, the fin never falls. 

DILUTE

Siebren is not a chemist by any stretch of the imagination; physics and chemistry are quite different fields.

His brows squeeze together in intense thought, and he tries to channel every scrap of intelligence he has into this delicate task. Carefully, he weighs out some clinging, silt-like powder from its container; he pours his best guess at the right amount of fluid; he taps out what feels like the correct quantity of granules with care. 

It would help if he had some kind of  _ formula  _ to work with, but he’s on his own. 

After a brief stir, he tastes the concoction, and promptly makes a face. The chocolate in the cocoa is intensely strong and sludgy. 

He should’ve known that wouldn’t be enough water...

COMEDY

Sigma, like most other people on the face of the planet, thinks he’s funny. His favorite thing is wordplay: ‘ _ I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation’,  _ or ‘ _ I don’t know, I didn’t plan’et that way’  _ or maybe even ‘ _ you need to give me some space’  _ are all some variations of jokes in his repertoire. 

No one else appreciates them the same way Sigma does, and he thinks that’s a shame. He reckons he’d do well at an open mic night, but Talon doesn’t seem to have those, and his movement is rather restricted (in the interest of his safety, of course). 

He settles for laughing at them by himself while he’s working. 

_ What astronomer swears too much? Coperni-cuss! _

Oh, he’s too good. 

LEADERSHIP

Sigma is quite unclear on the exact  _ leadership  _ of Talon. Moira won’t tell him, and it’s all murky details and tenuous guesstimations based on weak evidence. Sigma is sure he’s not important enough to have met the mastermind, but he thinks O’Deorain is likely high up in the science way of things, the Reaper is high up in the…  _ whatever it is Reaper does  _ side of things, and the highest-up Sigma has  _ ever  _ met is Akande Ogundimu, a perfect embodiment of the charismatic, sharp-dressing politician.

Things are very odd here, that’s for sure. There are so many guards and so little transparency. Sigma’s not even quite sure what Talon  _ does _ … 

But he is grateful, so he keeps his head down and his mouth closed. 

MESS

Sigma used to run a tight ship. You  _ have  _ to, out in space. Zero-gravity environments don’t abide messes, because they have the chance to literally kill someone. 

Now that he isn’t in space, however…

Sigma’s quarters are just about the most tempest-tossed arrangement of clothing, furniture, and miscellaneous items imaginable. The blankets drape on the floor, the glowing screens projected on the wall are covered in half-erased mathematical gibberish, various objects around the room have been abandoned on the floor at seemingly random, and if Sigma is actually there during someone’s visit, there are usually five or six things idly floating in the air. 

Suffice to say a messy room reflects a messy mind. 

**Author's Note:**

> This particular prompt list had the requirement of "over 100 words, less than 125" for each prompt. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed; usually this series is with a romantic pairing and not a specific character, but I don't ship sigma with anybody and I think his character is interesting enough to stand on its own.


End file.
